In the prior art, automatic stud drivers have been complicated devices in which a set of jaws were clamped onto the stud and then, while the jaws firmly and nonrotatably hold the stud, the stud was inserted into the workpiece. Once the stud was fully inserted in the workpiece, the stud driver automatically released the stud from the jaws and allowed the stud driver to be pulled away from the stud.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,743,639 to Lynch discloses a stud setter for automatically inserting studs. The stud setter disclosed in Lynch U.S. Pat. No. 2,743,634 is a very complicated device comprising numerous concentric cylinders, numerous metal balls within the cylinders, and a set of jaws in the middle of all of the cylinders. Each of the balls within the concentric cylinders lies within holes in one of the cylinders and slide in and out of grooves in the other cylinders and grooves in the jaws. The various grooves in the cylinders and jaws caused the manufacture and assembly of the stud setter to be extremely difficult.